As I mentioned many months ago, we have been working on a new site design.

The first step was importing all of NGA's content onto our platform. Thanks to Dave's incredible programming skills and Jon's tireless work, that's been accomplished. Whooohooo!

The next step has been a total redesign of garden.org. Our desire is to bring the NGA into the next season of it's life. While ATP's focus was mainly forums, with the addition of NGA, we are so much more than a community with the largest database- we are now a juggernaut of information. Our desire with the redesign is to showcase all that NGA has to offer to the millions who visit every month. We've worked hard, and I'm confident that you will love the results.

Yes, things will look different- very different! But, at the core, things will be the same, just updated. We'll be right here, as always, helping everyone make the change and fixing those rare bugs that may pop up. I've been using the updated site for several weeks now, so I can vouch that it works.

As a huge bonus, Dave has worked just for you all to make the new site very customize-able. I don't want to build it up too much, but I think you will be very very happy!

Our hard goal for relaunch is the end of the month, but we're hoping for sooner. I wanted to make sure that our core members are well informed and ready! Trust me, you are in for a treat!

Looking forward to the new and improved NGA. Very interested in seeing the customize-able part.

All the changes to date (from day #1 of ATP) have been positive, as far as I'm concerned -- so I'm looking forward to whatever comes next!!

Not to be negative which I will be but: I have been on a lot of forums, for well over a decade, that changed format, NOT ONE has ever been an improvement.

LOL, RpR -- withhold your judgment until you see what is in store... Dave does not (or at least has not in the past many years) make changes that are bad for the site members!

Get out your baby book, it is important to record all the firsts!!

@RpR, you are pretty new around here, I've been along for Dave's site changes since 2004, NOT ONE has ever NOT been an improvement. And if something is wonky or a problem, he ALWAYS listens to the members and then often makes improvements to those improvements.

Enjoy the ride!

Sounds great Dave and Trish!

I agree - been around for many years........ before 2009, but can't remember when
Dave & Trish have never done things without considering how we feel.
As uncomfortable as I am with change, this is ONE change that I'm looking forward to seeing, just because it IS Dave & Trish making the change

RpR said:Not to be negative which I will be but: I have been on a lot of forums, for well over a decade, that changed format, NOT ONE has ever been an improvement.

I have to agree with @RpR with my experiences. I have been ( past tense ) a member of one Forum for almost 30 years and they "upgraded" their entire website / forum and it was / still is terrible. Soft color background with small (I mean small) font in a soft color made it almost impossible to read. Despite all of the request by a huge number of members, no changes were made. I for one simple left the Forum.

This is not to say the forth coming changes for NGA will be that way.

Too many times changes are made just for the sake of change or for financial reasons. The new website / forum becomes really "cute" and "too busy" and looses it's intended design and use. I strongly believe in the "KISS" system. Keep it Simple Stupid.

I also understand and agree that no one should make any kind of pre-judgment.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day.

@RpR and @Thomas75 - I have been on Dave and Trish's websites for well over 15 years. I'm an absolute idiot on all things computer and technology and I can promise and assure you that Dave will make this very easy to navigate.

I'm really excited and looking forward to the new design changes! Those of us who've been around for quite awhile know that every change made is going to be great.

@RpR and @Thomas75, No need to worry ... this site and all of it's members are in the Best and Most Capable hands of the Whitinger family! I've been a follower since 2006 and there is no better gardening related site on the web than right here.

~ We are all Family family here at NGA's garden.org

With over 50,000 members, it's inevitable that there are going to be people that will not be happy. But it's sad to see negative comments before the changes ever start to take place.

Looking forward to see what's coming

One thing I can say, the difference with the other sites that made "improvements" is, the don't have @Dave, @Trish and @Jon on their side

Long post alert!!

For those who are interested in some technical details, I have spent approximately the last month rewriting the HTML for Garden.org. The last time I did a full rewrite was back in 2012, when I rewrote it to make it smartphone-friendly. I wrote it 100% from scratch and it worked very well in most browsers, but had some serious limitations.

This latest update moves us away from my custom solution over to a platform called bootstrap, which is a really nice set of open source CSS and Javascript libraries that allow really nice mobile web development. Moving Garden.org to this framework means that I'll have better tools to continue the development of the site. The web is always evolving, and it's important to continue to evolve our website along with the web. Moving to bootstrap enables me to do exactly that.

The left navigation bar will be removed, replaced with a navigation bar at the top of the page. There will be pulldowns for the major sections of the site (Articles / Plants Database / Community / Tools & Apps).

The look of the site will also be toned down a little bit, so that the actual content stands out better. We're experimenting with different header images. In the past we feature a daily new image in the banner at the top, and we will probably change to have that part only appear in the community part of the site. The rest of the site will have a more consistent (from day to day) look that doesn't change each day.

Other than the navigational parts of the site, much of the look won't change. The threads will remain looking almost the same as they do now. Same with the plants database. Over time we will likely improve the layouts of the various features of the site, but I don't foresee dramatic changes. I'm pretty happy with the way our threads look right now.

One really exciting thing is that I have developed a dashboard feature, where you can customize what you want to see, and where you want to see it. You drag and drop sections into columns. So right now you go to the homepage and you see the items that I chose for you, in the order that I chose them. After the redesign launch, you will be able to use the dashboard feature to only see exactly the new items you want to see.

For example, maybe you care more about seeing new photos, so you'd put the "Recently Uploaded Database Images" at the top-left of the page. Then "Recently Uploaded Multi-Plant Images" at the top right of the page. Fun random images can go on the right side. You get the idea.

I've been using the dashboard for a few days and I absolutely love it, and I know you all will, too. This site redesign has enabled me to develop this feature, and many more really nice ones like it are in store for the future. I'm actually quite excited to show you all what we have made for you.

It sure sounds like exciting and wonderful changes are ahead, can't wait to see the results of your hard work!

@Dave ,

Glad to hear you're moving in the open source direction. Having done a lot of programming over the past 35 years, it's great when you don't have to re-invent the wheel each time you need a wheel.

I think I have a not so unique concern that the site will become too mobile friendly and leave those of us using a desktop platform with older browsers out in the cold. With Firefox, Chrome and now MS Edge dropping support for older hardware/software at a rabid pace, there are fewer and fewer sites that can be used as their latest versions won't run on the older systems. Especially when you're on a very limited income/budget. Buying new hardware, etc. just to keep up with the newer browsers isn't an option.

Just me $0.02 .

Actually Rick, right now Garden.org officially does not support the older browsers. When people have problems, I tell them to stop using IE and move to Chrome.

After the redesign, I expect the site will work with MSIE and other ancient browsers, for the first time.

Over the years that I have been an All Things Plants, and now National Gardening Association subscriber, I cannot remember an instance that either Dave or Trish did not make changes that benefited the site and we, its subscribers. They both have always been open to suggestions and when I have ever had complaints (very few) or concerns (few), they always responded to me quickly. I sincerely believe that whatever changes they have in mind will be well thought out and will be positive. I think a lot of the concern I read is simply because human nature makes us a bit uncomfortable with change. But let's see what the site becomes and then make judgments whether we like what we see or don't.

Thanks Dave, that's what I'm hoping for as well.

My system runs Windows 2000, which I need to keep for legacy software that either no longer exists or is too expensive to upgrade. I run Firefox 12 and IE 6. Chrome isn't an option at all. While the hardware would probably run Windows 7, the legacy software won't run on anything beyond XP.